I’m not sure. I couldn’t say. Beats me. I can’t be certain.

Who knows? It’s anyone’s guess. I really have no idea.

I haven’t the foggiest. In fact, I don’t have a clue.

…

Do you?

Clichéd as that sounds,
There’s no other way really to go,
And that is true now
As much as it was long ago.

Time wanders by and pauses
To see my strange parade,
And wonders at the point and sense
Of my cyclical crusade.

I wonder, too, what wisdom
Has led me back around;
If one more go, if one more try
Will show me different ground.

Too jaded by the crowds;
Eyes open wide,
He fooled his mind and fled
Somewhere inside.

I waited there,
So long for him to see,
But could not hope
For what would never be.

Fall behind;
Stay on the track.

Crawling forward,
Nails gone black;

The goal in mind,
Keep up attack.

No change,
No change
In work or play.

Steady,
Stagnant,
Tame decay;

Tired,
Familiar,
Life as cliche.

Uncommon,
Different,
Something new;

Defiant,
Disturbed,
Contrary few.

Surprise,
Confound,
Avoid routine;

Live life
As human,
Not as machine.

Let confidence come,
And then tear self-doubt to shreds.

Let sadness fade,
And let not happiness be prey

Nor hope succumb
To life’s many fickle threads.

Let anger go,
And cast out suspicion too;

Let fear escape,
With despair as well to follow.

Let power flow,
To fight all existence through;

And let courage find shape
In a heart no longer hollow.

Let light invade,
And lift the veil,
Of darkness in the mind;

Let mind evade,
Once more prevail,
No longer be confined.

Let light crusade
And pierce the veil
Of darkness in the mind;

Let light invade,
And without fail,
Give sight back to the blind.

Nonetheless, and facetiousness aside, I can’t help but think that in some cases “they” are absolutely right – and this is one of them. No matter where in the world you find yourself, no matter what you bring with you or what you leave behind, there’s always one thing that remains the same, one thing that you can’t get rid of even if you wanted to.

Now that’s not to say that I think a person can’t evolve and grow, or that a new place is little more than a change of scenery. (Certain locales are obviously more conducive to certain lifestyles or habits, for example, or they offer you opportunities – or challenges? – that other places can’t.) I also don’t mean to suggest – even implicitly – that I necessarily want to leave myself behind or get rid of my past …though I guess you could argue that any move, regardless of its stated purpose, involves some form of “escape” from your prior self, whether consciously intentional or not.

In any event, my point is, as I said, not that you can’t change yourself nor that your surroundings don’t matter. It is, rather, that just picking up and shuffling yourself away to a different spot on the globe and expecting that that will change everything all on its own… well, it is, to put it politely, nonsense. Actually, it’s utterly ridiculous. It’s completely insane! And what’s more, it’s also…

…it’s also completely understandable.

Heck, I’ve been doing this for years, moving from place to place with that exact expectation in mind, and apparently am only just now fully realizing the inescapable truth of the little aphorism that started this blog post.

Again, I don’t mean to suggest – especially not to those few of my (also very few) regular readers who know my situation – that this is entirely personal or that it’s borne out of present dissatisfaction: I am, on the whole, happy with my move and am optimistic – if sometimes a bit cautiously – about my future possibilities. It’s just that, with this move in particular, I’m finally accepting that, though location does matter, ultimately it matters far less than what you bring with you.

It’s not the material things, of course, but instead the things that only you yourself can sense: the mental lens through which you view the world, the memories that inevitably color the way you perceive (and remember) your new experiences… even the hopes and dreams that can irresistibly persist even through changing circumstances.

It’s all these things, and more, wrapped up tightly in a relatively small, fairly fragile skull that is – future bio-technological advances notwithstanding – our only truly persistent home throughout life.

And so it is like they say: wherever you go, there you are. Because wherever you are, wherever it is in the world that you choose to rest your head, the universe ultimately only makes one guarantee, only offers us that one X-mark of certainty in our otherwise uncertain journeys.

“You are here.”

Or rather, that the blogger feels neglectful, I should say, since of course a blog can’t feel anything, so far as we know. (Ghost in the machine? An A.I. with an online journal? … What a different book William Gibson’s Neuromancer would have been if Wintermute had been blogging his -  or its – way through cyberspace. But I digress…)

What’s the big deal, after all? It’s not like there’s a rule saying you have to write so-and-so many blog posts per month. … Well, unless you’re doing a company blog of some kind and your job depends on how prolific you are with your postings. But for the rest of us, what’s it matter if a few weeks go by without an update? Or even a few months? (Or, for the truly slack, a few years?)

And yet, for me at least, it does matter. It feels somehow “wrong” to have a blog and not use it, to not make sure it stays “fresh” with new posts, whatever their content.

But why? FSM knows I don’t (yet) have that many regular readers, at least going by my (scarcity of) comments. Keeping a blog active is probably a good way to get more readers, of course, but is there another reason?

Is a more active blog more deserving of its existence? Do frequent postings somehow justify its presence in the blogosphere? I suppose you could say that a blog that’s not updated ceases to be a blog, in the strictest definition of the word. On the other hand, I’m sure there are plenty of blogs that – for a variety of valid reasons – no longer get new content (outlived their original purpose?) but that still have interesting & worthwhile posts archived from way back when. Still, I think there’s a difference between a blog that’s been permanently retired and one that just gets unintentionally forgotten; does the blog collecting dust in the proverbial corner not have just as much right to its little virtual life as any other?

If so, then why the guilt? It’s sort of similar to the situation you can find yourself in with friends you haven’t talked to in ages: sure, you feel bad, but as long as you do eventually call (or e-mail, or text, or whatever) and reconnect, isn’t it “all good”? Naturally, a blog is not quite the same as a living, breathing person (though see my comment about Neuromancer above) – and your blog can’t really be the one to initiate contact with you, unlike your longlost friends – but still, it’s similar.

Maybe what it’s really about is that, in posting infrequently, you feel you’re not helping your blog reach its full potential. … Actually, now that I think about it, the same might be said about infrequent contact between friends and the squandered potential of those friendships.

But that’s life, I guess, both for blogs and friendships. You do what you can and try to get on with it, dusting off that neglected thing in the corner and polishing it up even when you’re afraid that – after all this time – there might not be any shine left underneath.